1. Field: The field of the invention is apparatus and methods for utilization of conventional building units to form structures thereof.
2. State of the Art: Since the invention of hard-setting mortar centuries, even millenia ago, it has been the mainstay for securing masonry building units together within edifices, walls, bridges, and other structures. Mortar is utilized for native field stone, cut stone, baked clay bricks and cast concrete blocks. Traditionally, the conventional cut or cast building units have been right-angled, plane sided blocks. In recent decades, however, many have proposed the use of building units cast into interlocking shapes to be utilized in some structures without the use of mortar. Examples include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,618,279, 990, 119, French Patent No. 915,121, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,991,818. Some prior art building systems utilize some sort of bearing member between mating block faces. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,587, an elaborately shaped interface member is used with standard concrete blocks. For stability, reinforcing rods are grouted in place vertically through holes cast in the cement blocks. Thus, the system does not escape the use of cementitious material to provide structural integrity. U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,632 discloses a system using blocks especially cast into interlocking shapes with vertically oriented J-bolts used as tension members between stacked layers of the blocks. Clearly, all of the prior art building block systems are undesirably complex and expensive, require cementitious bonding, or fail to utilize conventional masonry units.